Christie and I are a touch frightened. It’s raining and there’s a note under the windscreen wiper. We’ve just attended the opening of the new Essential Ingredient store in Rozelle and we were just about to find somewhere around here to eat when we go to feed the parking meter and find this note. It’s wrapped in cling wrap and says “Wayne 04xxxxxxx Call me, Cute yellow car”. It’s so random and so doesn’t make sense – we don’t have a yellow car and there’s no yellow car around. Because it’s a sinister looking dark and stormy night, we abandon plans to eat locally and high tail it out of there wondering why and how someone cling wraps a note like that and sticks it under a windscreen wiper? And what kind of person carries around cling wrap? The kind that has human heads in their freezer? Yes, let’s get out of here, we agree.
I check my book for places to eat. Apres jumps out at us although it is in busy 1 hour parking only Potts Point. We ring and ask whether at this lateish hour we can secure a table and they tell us that the kitchen closes at 10pm but they’ll keep it open until 10:15pm if we just want one plate. Done. We arrive and by some miracle find a park and arrive. It’s in a gorgeous Art Deco style building with ruby shaded velvet boothed seating. The manager is friendly and leads us to our table. When he asks us what we’ve been doing that evening thus far we tell him and he remarks how their sister place La Grand Bouffe is near there. Doh! Except that we did want to leave the area pronto of course in case a human head hunter was after us. There is a 3 course set menu but we’re not hungry enough for that and we’re too late for that. Entrees are $18.50, mains are $29.50 and desserts $14.50.
Amuse Bouche: Escargot
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March 1, 2010
by Not Quite Nigella
I’m always one for a meal in an unusual location. So when I heard that the food at the Old Convent in Orange was good, it didn’t take much to convince me we had to go. Initially told that it was a weekend cafe, we found out the hard way (i.e. visiting it) that it is actually a Sunday only cafe. Open Sunday only? It’s an unusual strategy but we ring ahead to check whether they are open and they are indeed and we ask if we need to make a reservation which they recommend.
Nestled in the hills of Orange in the area of Borenore we take the short drive there and we park in the driveway. We are the only car there at this time so we walk through the sandstone buildings and peer into a doorway into what looks like a private dining room. Facing it there’s what looks more like to be the restaurant area. We’re greeted warmly and as we are the only guests thus far, we can choose where we’d like to sit either inside or outside, As it’s such a beautiful day choose the sun dappled side area outside which has a cool breeze running through it.
There’s no menu to read here. The waitress simply reads off what is available today which happens to be three dishes, a panzanella salad with rack of lamb, a salmon and potato pie and a pea soup. As we both love rack of lamb we choose this and I am partial to fish pie too (and if I could have fit it in we would have ordered the pea soup too!). As it was we had to cancel our lunch at another restaurant as we couldn’t fit in two courses (many places have a two course minimum).
Mr NQN takes a walk around the grounds to take some pictures while I flick through magazines. We start to hear the sizzle of food and some delicious aromas waft out. In the meanwhile a table for four arrives and sits outside. After about 25 minutes our food arrives. It’s impressive looking certainly and after the obligatory photo taking we dig in.
Rack of Lamb with panzanella salad $25
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February 28, 2010
by Not Quite Nigella
Where did this month go? For a moment I swore I was still in January and then February rolled around and swept me off my feet like a hurricane. Two of my favourite bloggers Aparna and Deeba were hosting February’s challenge and even though I knew exactly what flavour of Tiramisu I wanted to make it still took me a while to get my act together. When a friend suggested I join Daring Cooks I looked at her like she was possibly insane and wondered how I could possibly fit another commitment into my crazed schedule.
Those that know me know that around 4pm every day I will probably be making myself a cup of tea and will be eating it with a biscuit. My favourite kind of tea is Earl Grey followed by Lady Grey which gives me more of a pick up than Earl Grey. So early on in the month, when I was thinking of a twist on tiramisu, I immediately thought of tea. It sounded like an easy enough substitution, just switch the coffee for tea. With that idea, I had no excuse for delaying it which I had been doing lately. Perhaps I had caught Mr NQN’s procrastination bug? The one where he said that fixing the balcony lock was next to impossible until his brother came over one afternoon and fixed it within the space of five minutes. I hoped not.
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February 27, 2010
by Not Quite Nigella
Today started with a hijacking. I’ve never been hijakced before and never did i think that it would be by an Italian women’s travel group. We were on our way to Oberndorf to see the Silent Night Holy Night chapel when a talkative bunch of women boarded the train. We got off and proceeded to our waiting horses and carriage only to find them piling on board after us. Not wanting to deny fellow tourists a ride we let them on and thus our short lived hijacking saga began.
We took the scenic five minute horse ride through the narrow streets and past the river-literally on the other side of the river was Bavaria, Germany. We’re trying to avoid being lumped together with the other tour groups so we move quickly and visit the Silent Night Holy Night chapel where the famous Christmas Carol was composed.
On December 24th 1818 at this site Silent Night was performed for the very first time. The lyrics were written by Joseph Mohr who served a a parish priest. Christmas meant something different back then. It meant that people would gather and it would also mean that they would eat better food but this year their organ had broken so they needed to find different music to play.
Mohr had written a poem which was the words of Silent Night and he gave this to Franz Xaver Gruber who was a teacher and organist and that afternoon on the 24th of December he write the music for it. 1000 people first heard them singing it and in 1839 it was brought over to America where it became popular very quickly and it is now estimated that it is sun in 400 different languages. In 1906 the original St Nicola church was burnt down and in 1937 this memorial chapel was built instead.We’ve arrived just in time as two singers playing Mohr and gruber sing us Silent Night. With this cue, two singers enter and sing us Silent Night.
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February 26, 2010
by Not Quite Nigella
I am a woman of ratios. For someone that was average at best at Maths at school, for me food is all about ratios. The correct ratio of moisture to dryness the correct ratio of salt to sweet and the correct ratio of popcorn to caramel. I always find that when I get a bag of caramel popcorn there are never a) enough caramel to coat the pieces or b) enough good nuts. I understand that for them it’s not so much a matter of ratios but more a matter of economics with ratios running a poor second.
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February 25, 2010
by Not Quite Nigella
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